Movie 109 Die Hard

So finally, a truly iconic movie. there have been times, when no matter the part of the day, I could turn the TV on and "Die Hard" would be on some channel. It is a big enough movie franchise, that I bet any of you reading this, there are people reading this right, could tell me who played John McClane without me telling you the movie. I bet you could even tell me the most famous line from this franchise, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" without skipping a beat. This movie coming out in a time where special effects were starting to become a thing of their own, and action movies starred guys with more muscles that words in their vocabulary.

Watching this movie is so easy. Although like most it takes a little while to start, but once it does, it is frenetic and fun all the way to the end. Supposedly Bruce Willis was the 6th choice of actor for the role of McClane. Behind Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, and Mel Gibson. Of course like many of our favorite movie characters none of those other guys even make sense, but who knows and what if's generate a lot of office conversations.

Its hard to really talk about the technical and artistic merit of the movie. If you try and nit-pic it, like I found myself doing a little, you do notice that this is the cliché movie of cliché movies. Bad lines, barely established character relationships, guns that never run out of ammo, multiple outrageous explosions, and a bad guy that has to explicitly get shot 5 times after being strangled, and falling 30+ stories after the top of the building that he was in exploded. All of this aside, it still is a joy to watch.

Willis' performance of the tough wise cracking down on his luck hero is perfect. He gets into and out of amazing situations, each time thinking he won't see the other side. Not to mention he does all this butt kicking with no shoes on, the whole movie.

The direction of the movie is done well, especially because the viewer is never left with too much down time. It is not non-stop gun fighting and explosions, but just when the movie could have started to feel like it was dragging, it would pick right up again and off on another adventure you are. The music and ambiance of the movie definitely remind anyone of the 80's, but not in the tacky way that makes us want to forget it.

Overall it is definitely a must see in your lifetime. As much as the cliché moments bothered me, the movie never tried to be what it wasn't, and performed the crime action thriller to a T.

Score: 8.5 Fun for everyone. Lower score because compared to what I consider "great" movies, this is missing a lot, but it still is perfector a genre that led to many good, and bad, action films of the 90's that may not have seen the light of day were it not for John McClane.